Shown with optional stand! Take the optional stand away, and it only weighs 304 pounds.

Believe it or not, HDTVs have been around since the 1990s. They just didn’t become ubiquitous until the late 2000s, for various reasons — price and lack of content chief among them (the same thing is happening with Ultra HD TV right now).

There were plasma and LCD flat panels back in 2002, but the bulkier, traditional CRT (cathode ray tube) was still considered as providing the best picture (as well as, by far, the least expensive option). And the Sony KV-40XBR800 CRT HDTV was the Cadillac of CRT HDTVs.

It also weighed over 300 pounds and was over two feet deep. You did not hang this on your wall. And you needed at least one friend to help you move it somewhere. Preferably two. Or three.

Only 26 inches deep!

Oh, and did we mention that this was an HDTV? Well, not quite. It was what they used to call an “HD-ready” TV. You actually had to buy an HDTV tuner — which was a separate box, and plug it into the TV.

And even then, your options were limited to the smattering of HDTV content that was available over-the-air from broadcast networks like NBC, ABC and CBS.

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